DISCUSS

Content to inspire and start conversations.

At DISCUS, we’re here to keep you informed and up-to-date on the outsourced investment market. We feel passionately about helping advisers and other professionals to deliver an exceptional client experience, which starts with finding the right partners to support you in your business. On these pages you will get to know our discretionary manager partners and have the ability engage in conversation. Use the comments section to give us your thoughts and feedback. We’re building the DISCUS offering around you, so be sure to have your say.

I recently attended the 6th Dynamic Planner Annual Conference organised by Distribution Technology at the IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology) in London. The event was attended by well over 200 IFAs plus numerous product providers, sponsors and even the odd...

When selecting funds for the Positive Impact Portfolios, EQ investors constantly seek to find funds that aim to make a positive contribution to society or the environment, deliver an attractive financial return, while also avoiding harmful investments. Every fund in...

Rapid advances in technology are seeing increasing levels of workplace automation, which is throwing up some interesting investment opportunities and giving food for thought in terms of the social implications, says Mark Hawtin, investment director, global long short...

This week we are pleased to announce our newest discretionary manager (DFM) partner Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management (CGWM or 'Canaccord'). When we first met the team at Canaccord a few months back, as I'm sure you can imagine, we learnt quite a lot about their...

A few weeks ago I attended an event and had the pleasure of meeting Anna Lane, CEO of the Wisdom Council. I could have listened to Anna all afternoon as she shared consumer insights from their research. Some of the findings around ethical investing were of...

Often one of the challenges for financial advisers when selecting a Discretionary Fund Manager (DFM) as an investment partner is to identify what makes them different and how this can act as a basis for comparison. Within the Compare tool there are a range of criteria...

Did you know that this year marks the 150th anniversary of the very first investment company? That's an incredibly long innings by any stretch of the imagination. Given the popularity of articles we have published on the use of investment companies in client...

A recent article on the BBC about the prevalence of jargon in the business world (as part of their coverage of the meeting at Davos) stated that benchmarking brought to mind – at least as far as the journalist and colleagues were concerned – “a bulging, sweaty...

Here at Vertem we have always has a slightly different approach to ‘model’ portfolios, not only we were keen that our ‘bespoke’ portfolios were genuinely bespoke, rather than ‘models dressed as bespoke’, as we had found elsewhere, but the evolution of any models we...

Here on the DISCUS website we talk a lot about the importance of due diligence and the key criteria advisers use to evaluate potential discretionary manager (DFM) partners, often using analytics from our Compare tool. It will come as no surprise that advisers are...

Study after study has found that people who receive financial advice, even on relatively small amounts of money, end up better off. So, how can advisers reach a wider audience, and also benefit? This article is brought to you by our friends at Brooks Macdonald....

A while back having your own Application ('App') was the latest buzz for financial advisers. It seemed like everyone we spoke with was considering launching an App and a raft of companies came to the market offering services to support the perceived demand. Fast...

Over the course of my 20-year career in financial services I have always worked, in some shape or form, in outsourcing. From investment outsourcing to outsourced marketing. I’ve launched multi-manager funds, consulted to advisers on building their centralised...

We are always looking at how discretionary fund managers (DFMs) support financial advisers and clients in unique and different ways. At LGT Vestra we spotted that they were doing something interesting through a partnership with The School of Life and thought we would...

Earlier this week I attended a BlackRock media event focused on what the future might hold for the financial services profession, looking forward to the year 2025. A key topic highlighted during the discussion was the increased adoption of 'values based' investing,...

We recently learnt that the With Profits market (measured by technical provisions) exceeded £274 billion at the end of 2016. Given the considerable size of in-force business we believe it is prudent for advisers to continue to keep abreast of developments in the With...

Just before the festive break I met with Robert Clark of RC Brown. I always enjoy meeting with Robert because I can guarantee that the conversation will get me thinking (for example, see this earlier post DB pension transfer through the eyes of a consumer: the...